in terms of cc's don't get the israeli ones (their stupid), get an american one like amex platinum, chase ba or chase marriot that have no forex fee. now banks you can open a free checking student account with hapoalim or leumi and they come with a debit card but you must bring a letter from the yeshiva that your a student in order for the fees to be waved or you can open a free checking account at bank hadoar but it's better to go for the real banks. hatzlacha

or you can just use your american bank and withdraw money in israel with their debit card. just be careful some banks charge forex fees. both schwab bank and td bank don't charge forex fees but td bank charges $2 for atm withdrawels if you have a balance of less than $2,500.00 in the account.

You don't really need to have a bank account there, an American one will suffice especially on the short term (a few years). You would like to avoid Forex fees, so I recommend C Schwab's High yield (that's the name it actually yields pennies) which does not charge any maintenance nor international fees. When linked to a Schwab savings account you will have free overdraft protection, when linked to a margin line on a brokerage account it can draw from there as well with no fee either (besides for interest of course). You can swipe the debit card or use a CC which does not charge Forex such as the BA (link Dan) or some others which you can find by searching the forums. Deposits can be mad online (ach transfer) or with business reply envelopes which they provide.

or you can just use your american bank and withdraw money in israel with their debit card. just be careful some banks charge forex fees. both schwab bank and td bank don't charge forex fees but td bank charges $2 for atm withdrawels if you have a balance of less than $2,500.00 in the account.

just to clarify- you have to have a premier checking account in order to avoid those ATM fees, not just have 2,500 balance (although that is the min balance in a premier acct to avoid monthly fees). but once you are premier, they will also refund you any external ATM fees, even if they are in Israel, although you might have to call up to have them apply the refund if they aren't automatically recognized as fees by their system IME.